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Sylvatex enters Joint Development Agreement with Valicor

Bioenergy International

Biofuels & Oils

February 13, 2018

US-based biotechnology platform developer Sylvatex, Inc., has announced that it has entered into a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with Valicor, Inc., a leading US-based separations technology and process developer. The JDA will oversee the development, construction, and commercialization of Sylvatex’s "MicroX" technology, converting distillers corn oil (DCO) and other plant-based oil feedstocks into Sylvatex’s proprietary MicroX renewable blendstock.

Sylvatex has developed a platform technology using biomass-derived inputs that self-assemble to form a thermodynamically stable liquid crystal micro emulsion. This very stable compound is composed of inverse micelles where the polar components concentrate in the interior of a bubble and coordinate with the polar head of a renewable, combustible surfactant (image courtesy Sylvatex).

According to a statement, the JDA will also accelerate commercial scale engineering and expedite early market sales of the MicroX blendstock. Sylvatex creates renewable nanoscale emulsion systems that can be used in fuels, lithium battery manufacturing, and other speciality chemical applications such as food and fragrances. Sylvatex’s product platform MicroX replaces petroleum-based emulsions with what the company says is “a technically superior, low-cost, non-toxic system”.

This agreement marks the commencement of a long-term partnership with Valicor, a leader in conversion technologies. Sylvatex and Valicor have enjoyed a strong collaborative relationship, advancing innovations. We look forward to expanding our partnership to create value and better utilize existing assets, said Virginia Klausmeier, CEO of Sylvatex.

Sylvatex and Valicor “share the commitment” to waste resource recovery and upcycling of biomaterials to create valuable solutions for industry. The company’s say that the partnership will benefit both the environment and stakeholders by repurposing materials, maximizing green chemistry processing by allowing for substantially lower production costs, and significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

We are excited to partner with Sylvatex, a company which shares our core values of resource repurposing and sustainability. We have been engaged in DCO processing development for some time and were looking for accretive technologies that would complement our efforts. The technology synergy will exponentially increase the value of each company’s respective work and bring value to the market, said Tom Czartoski, CEO of Valicor.

Both Sylvatex and Valicor expect to deploy this technology in partnership with ethanol producers as a way to increase the value of co-products and to provide diversification into other fuels and chemical markets. Valicor specialises in industrial fluid reclamation and has developed programs to improve the process, yield and value of ethanol co-products including a proprietary protein platform and Corn Oil Separation System.

The ethanol market is limited by the “blend wall”, the amount of ethanol that may be blended into the gasoline market. With this technology, not only can we expand the use of ethanol as a fuel by breaking into the diesel market, but also diversify from fuel with new, untapped applications, said James Bleyer, R&D Manager for Valicor.